Harley's Bakery
by riant ragdoll
Summary: An AU where Dave is an ironic gang member and Jade is the granddaughter of a well-known baker.


Homestuck does not belong to me.

* * *

_I._

She had seen him before.

To Jade, people-watching was- besides aiming a gun and making a damned good pastry- her greatest talent. If there ever _was_ an extended amount of time without customers, Jade had always found herself snuggled up against the Bakery's tinted-blue windows. Situated in her accustomed spot, very little ever passed her keen, observant eye.

Despite this, she could never really wrap her head around _fashion_, or the phases that it went through.

But she did know that the clothes _he_ wore were not just a little obscure.

In the winter, he would pass by with a pink-and-green striped scarf coiled tightly around his neck, while a pair of hamburger earmuffs hid his ears from view. He carried with him a glittery Cinderella backpack around his thin shoulders, accompanied by two hideous plastic key chains: one of Hello Kitty, the other of Belle from _The Beauty and The Beast_.

In the summer, he would tromp past her window every day at approximately 3:15 pm, wearing a pair of brightly-lit, light-me-up sneakers. Attached to a cord that slid down into his pant pocket, earbuds with an egg-and-bacon design blasted rap songs loud enough to be heard from the confines of her bakery. He would travel past in an awkward fashion, hindered slightly be the low sag of his pants.

No matter what the weather was- sunny, rainy, snowy, or foggy- he would never be seen without a familiar pair of large, plain sunglasses.

Jade could admit that he was blessed with soft, clean attributes in face and body. He was _slim_, but not unnaturally or unhealthily. He was _tall_, but not so he towered over people and unintentionally made himself out as a target. He would stroll past in a straightened posture, his hands tucked away into his pockets and his attention always pointed ahead of him.

But now, he no longer appeared so tall to Jade. His attention had been broken entirely, and his feeble body no longer emphasized a straight spine. Rather, he appeared so small when he lay crumpled beneath her, his warmth-seeking hands now strewn pathetically across the dirty ground. His face no longer appeared stoic, either; the feeling of _sheer pain_ had done away with any cold neutrality that he had once beheld in it.

His hair had always seemed to glow in the presence of the sun. The light blond waves had usually been kept to slope around his narrow face, causing it to appear more shapely than it actually was. But now, lying in a threaded mass on the pavement, it no longer carried any of its previous beauty; now, it only brought out the bright red blood seeping into his record-patterned t-shirt.

His glasses had been broken into two, tossed towards the corner of the street in which he normally took to.

Jade always saw him walking on the edge of social packs, only barely portraying that he might be apart of them. They almost never spoke to him, and he barely ever intercepted a word of his own. On rare occasions, when one of the group members' would acknowledge his presence, he would sometimes supply a word or phrase that would be met with the packs' shrill, rehearsed laughter. He would then allow a small, proud smile to tug at the edges of his mouth, before his expression fell and he noiselessly went on.

Jade was never particularly fond of him, nor the group that he had somehow acquainted himself with. Their loud obscenities and obnoxious behavior bothered her, and they always seemed to hold their unwarranted attentions to her and her bakery whenever they passed. She _knew_ that none of them were ever significantly pleased by her presence; it was most likely for that reason that she had come to dislike them so.

So then, when she reached down to pick up his limp body, it was less out of _friendliness _as to why she did it, and more out of just trying to be a _decent human being_. He was not unconscious, and she learned this by the faint grunt that escaped his lips when she'd pushed him up to her shoulder. He was much taller than she was, too; his head, lulling back and forth on his neck, nestled itself unhelpfully into her wild, tangled hair. Tightening one arm around his waist and grabbing hold of his hand with her other, she dragged his body towards the opening of her bakery.

Knocking past the rounded tables and clinking into the souvenirs and glass wall-hangings, she was silently thankful for the strange absence in customers. She supposed that they must have somehow felt something like this was going to happen; although maybe not intentionally, they always seemed to know when not to show themselves.

Jade set him up in the back of the kitchen, next to a stack of flour and against a cool, hard counter. He had ceased to make any noise at that point, and Jade made quick work in cleaning and dressing his wounds. She was by no means a doctor, but she did have a small knowledge of medicine that her grandpa had long ago taught her.

Once she was at least sure that he wouldn't be dying any time soon, she had left him momentarily at the ring of an expectant customer. When she returned, he was standing.

"Where are my sunglasses?" He asked just as soon as he saw Jade enter the room. He bumped his wrist into the counter, still slightly unstable on his feet.

"Is that really your _first_ question?" She said with a snort, and he looked at her in mild annoyance.

"... Where am I, then?"

"You're in my bakery." Jade immediately answered. His eyes met hers in a swirl of confusion; she decided it best to further explain. "The one downtown, about a block or two away from the local school."

For a moment, his face was blank. When revelation dawned on him, though, the distinct outline of bafflement trailed around each and every part of his narrowed features.

"How did I get here?" He inquired in his new haste, beginning again to frantically scan the kitchen for his misplaced sunglasses.

"You were beat up pretty bad in a fight. I brought you in here to patch you up."

Jade watched his pupils dart from side to side a few more times before offering him any of her aid.

"Your dumb looking sunglasses are beside the door." He quickly stalked towards the exit, "They were broken in the fight, though. You might not be able to wear them anymore."

He picked each piece up in either of his hands, and carefully inspected the damage that had been done.

"They're fine." He at last remarked, "Nothing some good ol' duct tape can't fix."

"Well, that's nice, I guess." She paused, openly staring into his face. "There's some duck-tape in the drawer on your left. If you want, you can take a little bi-" He had already retrieved the tape, and was pulling a sizable amount off of the roll.

"Or, you know, you can go around stealing a poor girl's duck-tape. That's fine, too." She sighed, mixing a small hand into her large structure of coal-black hair.

Wrapping the tape cautiously around the nose-piece of his sunglasses, Jade's guest didn't give her the courtesy of a reply. Pouting, she leaned up against the back wall, where he had only been propped up minutes ago.

"See? Good as new."

He momentarily bestowed the sunglasses to her, which were farther than '_good as new_' as they could possibly be. A tiny, barely noticeable crack had sent a shatter down one of the lenses, and the dark plastic threatened to collapse out of the frame at any inopportune time.

"So," He muttered, after he had managed to position the glasses in a way that more-or-less hid his eyes. "You're that Harley girl, right?"

Jade visibly perked up, happy that he was already acquainted with her.

"Yup, that's me- _Jade Harley_, temporarily in charge of Harley's Bakery, and ready for business!"

Right on time with her silly little introduction, a loud _ding_ erupted into the back room from an impatient customer out front. Jade let an airy giggle escape from within her, blatantly showing off a mouthful of dog-like teeth.

"So, what's your name?" Jade asked him.

"Dave."

"Well, _Dave_, since you sort of owe me a _liiittle_ bit of a favor..." She pointed towards the recently-bandaged section of his lower torso, and he pulled his arms towards it instinctively. "How's about you help me around the bakery?"

Dave pushed backwards, taking a steady step towards the doorway.

"Now, calm down. It's not like I'm keeping you here for the rest of your life, or anything." Jade laughed, her mouth making a large '_o_' in her amusement. "I just want you to help me out for a day, alright?"

He stood still for a few minutes, stewing.

"... Okay." He at last said, "What do you want me to do?"

"What are you good at?" Jade asked.

"Rapping."

"Well, okay. What are you good at, that can actually be beneficial to my bakery?"

He paused. "I suppose I can do a promotional rap _about_ your bakery. It won't be cheap, though."

Jade squinted at him, showing off her astute level of _not dealing with your shit._

"We'll get you started on baking, then."

_II._

"_Bttuuchh, Ptuchhh, Bum-tchh, Yeah, Yeah..._"

"Dave, come on."

"_Yo, these baked delectables be firing up, pushing it forward and about to erupt-_"

"Dave, please, think about the hungry customers."

"_- but when they see me, all hip and provoking, they'll be sure to stop flat, and yell-_"

"Dave, are you even paying attention to what you're doing?"

"- _'Damn Son, that boy is Stupendous'_!"

Jade set down her list of purchases for that day, and entered into the kitchen. Dave lay hunched over his work, beating against the counter top with the palms of his hands.

"That last part didn't even rhyme." Jade mentioned as she joined him by his side.

"Hey, it's a work in progress."

"Mmhmm." She glanced down, and visually took in the goop in front of him. "This is all you've done so far?"

"Oh, no, I've done a lot more." Dave responded. "I'm supposed to be making biscuits, right?"

Jade twitched. "_Crescents_, actually."

"Same thing."

She sniffed the air, and instantly recoiled. "It smells like burnt rubber in here."

"Those might be them, actually." He told her, pushing his ruined sunglasses further up his nose. "I thought they were supposed to smell like that. Some sort of weird French cuisine thing, you know? Never know what those frogs will be coming up with next."

"Why _wouldn't_ you know what they smelled like? I went step by step on how to make crescents- I even made the first batch with you!"

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, I never said I was any _good_ at cooking."

Jade pulled down the door of the oven hurriedly, glancing in towards the wreckage. Billows of smoke erupted from within it, sending Jade into a fit of coughing.

"_D- Da- Dav- _What the_ hell_!" She managed to hack out, doubling over in her fit. "How long have those been in for?!

"It's different for each one, I guess." He answered, nonplussed. "Whenever I finished making one, I would just sorta throw it in there."

Jade rushed to the windows, slamming each one open and letting the breeze in, and the smell out. She ran back to turn off the stove, before throwing herself to the counter in order to retrieve an oven mitt. Running back to the stove, she yanked out the baking pan, a gooey, burning mountain of batter overflowing out onto the bottom of the oven and the kitchen floor.

"Hey, I think I know what's the cause of the rubber smell." A finger appeared in the corner of Jade's vision, and alerted her to a black handle coming out of the sludge. "I might have left a spatula in there."

_III._

Dave had, through a good amount of consideration, been switched to work in the front.

"Hey, welcome to Harley's Bakery, strong supporters of slave labor. What can I do for you?"

Their customer looked puzzled, turning a questioning stare onto their new employee. Dave had gotten rid of his previous, blood-stained clothes in order to dawn more plain, work-ethical drab. A dull green shirt and matching pants limply clung to his figure, while a white apron was strapped only to the place above his waist. Jade had attempted to make him wear a Name Tag along with it, but after a few failed attempts in which he wrote incriminating names down rather than his own, Jade had given up on the idea.

"Harley Girl, do we have any extra packets of sugar?" Dave asked, leaning through the doorway and waving at Jade.

"I have a first name, you know." Jade grumbled, after transporting a small handful of sugar packets to him.

"Nope, I gotta keep it professional in here. You need to be courteous to your higher-ups, right?"

He turned to hand the sugar to their confused customer, before returning to the side of the doorway.

"Then what about the '_Girl_' part?" Jade asked, a wry smile tugging at the tips of her mouth.

"Oh, well, there's definitely a snappy answer behind that, too..." Dave stopped, bringing an inquisitive hand to rest beneath his chin.

"... Yeah, actually, I got nothing." He professed, after a few long moments.

Jade giggled into the center of her hand. "Right."

"So." Dave muttered, resting his head up against the side of the yellow door frame. "Do you usually do this?"

"Do what?"

"Take poor, unbeknown victims off of the street and force them to do your bidding." He explained, the curtain of his nonchalance making the very idea even more absurd.

Jade stood behind her station, setting down a pile of dough she'd been kneading. She looked up at Dave's face, poking out from the doorway, barely catching the hint of red behind the dark of his sunglasses.

"No." Jade answered, taking up the dough again. "No, this would probably have to be the first time I've ever done that."

"Oh, well, that's great to hear. It's nice to know that I'm special."

"Uh-huh..." She trailed off, momentarily absorbed by her task. "Honestly, I've never invited anyone in here, by force _or_ by request. I haven't really known anybody well enough to do something like that."

They both stilled, consumed by the heavy silence that followed that statement. After a few uncomfortable seconds, Jade tried to carry on with the activity at hand. It _almost_ worked in distracting her from the quiet, if not for the pair of eyes boring into her slacken face.

"Look outside." Jade suddenly demanded, picking up her dough one last time and whacking it back down onto the floured surface. Dave glanced out the front windows, and then returned his attention to Jade. "What time is it, do you think?"

"Well, it's sort of dark." Dave said, swerving his head around to get one more quick look. "Around 7, or 8 o'clock at night, I'd say."

"Hmm." Jade hummed, and then proceeded to open a drawer beneath her.

After wrapping her dough in a layer of plastic and placing it within a small, sturdy fridge, Jade walked up to the side of the doorway. Dave sat outside of it, criss-crossed, tracing a hand around on the wooden floorboards.

"Follow me, if you would." Jade mustered with a touch of well-played mystery, and then proceeded to try and yank Dave up from his spot. He grunted, before clutching onto his side with a pained grip.

"_Sorry_!" Jade hissed, letting go of him in her shock. Dave sagged forwards, clutching onto the wall beside him.

He sucked air in through the bottom of his teeth, a soft hush whisping through the whitened cracks.

"It's fine." He whispered, straightening himself out. "Not your fault."

Her guilt was evident behind her bright green eyes, lit up like fireworks. Dave returned the pitiful glance with a sigh, before rolling his shoulders and emitting a loud, thundering set of cracks.

"If it weren't for you, I'd probably still be out there, lying belly-up on the street." Dave mumbled, glancing up so that his sunglasses reflected a crack in the ceiling. "Don't worry about it."

Jade nodded, before a wolfish smile gripped her lips. Wordlessly, she pointed towards the inside of the kitchen, and then rushed back in. Dave followed, albeit more stoically than Jade's entrance.

She flung herself back and forth the room, retrieving boxes and thrusting them out into the middle of the room. Her feet were nimble across the smooth floor, and for a few flighty moments, the atmosphere was wrought over by the loud _scriiitch_ of boxes and the speed of her actions.

After a flurry of black hair and two dozen or so boxes, a small rectangle of items had been stacked together into the center of the kitchen. Jade stood proudly in front of her work, her hands placed onto either sides of her hips.

"... What am I even looking at, here." Dave finally inquired, after a long time in which Jade simply looked triumphantly up into his glasses.

"A table and chairs!" She erupted, thrusting out a hand to better bestow her creation.

Dave blanked. "You know, there are _actual_ tables and chairs out front."

Not noticing Dave's overall indifference at her self-made station, she went up beside him and, gently this time, pushed him towards the stacked boxes. She pointed down at a single box, until he presumed that he should sit down on it. Once he had settled himself, she flew off again to a counter top at the opposite side of the room.

"Okay." Dave said, sagging behind the large collection of boxes. "If you're trying to confuse me, you're doing a fucking A+ job of it. What is this, some sort of ceremony thing that you do? Are you trying to sacrifice me here, or something? I bet you're looking for some casket of virgin's blood you have kept away in the back of your cabinets right now, saved _just_ to use for a ritualistic situation like this."

Jade let out a belt of airy giggles. "_Noo_. The blood would go bad if I kept it out, so I normally keep it in the freezer. It keeps better there."

"... Oh."

"I'm joking, numskull." Jade snickered, snapping shut another section of the counter.

"Oh. Yeah, I knew that."

Jade twirled around again, this time her arms full of unknown presents. From Dave's spot, he was only allowed to see the tops of six or so brown paper bags, barely covering up the wide smile of the girl holding them. Jade bounded back over to the boxes, and proceeded to set down her prizes, one paper bag at a time.

"Dinner is served!" She chirped, pushing half of the bags over to Dave, and keeping the other half to herself. Dave looked down quizzically at his pile, pushing down with a curious finger on the one closest to him.

Slowly and carefully, Dave opened each bag and pulled out the contents. After approximately a minute or so of his picking about, his selection had been set down in rows in front of him. His dinner that night included a crescent, a donut, a raspberry muffin, and a scone.

"Ah, yes." Dave muttered. "The four major food groups."

Jade looked up from her own food, already halfway done in devouring a cranberry tart. With an uplifted tone, she rose herself slightly up from the three boxes she was seated on and enthusiastically jabbed a finger at his donut.

"That one has jelly in it!" She exclaimed.

"_Yeeeah_." He drawled, flicking at the pastry. "Great."

As Jade chewed hungrily at her treat, she unabashedly watched as Dave played with his own food. The idea that he might not like her dinner _never_ flashed through her mind- the very concept of it was absolutely nonsensical. She'd definitely had a long time to practice the art of cooking, after all.

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Honestly, not all that much." Jade frowned. "The food looks fine, don't get me wrong. There's just a lot of stuff that happened today, and- it all sort of took away my appetite, is all."

Jade, still with a touch of apathy, nodded in acceptance. Setting down the remnants of her scone, she stood up from her seat and walked over to Dave's side.

"Alright, I understand." Jade said, replacing the treats back into their bags before carrying them off. "But you've lost quite a lot of blood, and you need the food. So I expect you to eat soon, okay?"

Dave grunted in assurance. Jade returned to his side, the four separate bags placed into a small, brown satchel. Dave took the gift from her, and then stood up from his box.

"Welp." Jade took his arm up in her own, and strolled out of the kitchen with him. "I can't say you were all that much _help_ today, but it was nice having another body around for once. And it was truly an _interesting_ experience, if anything."

Dave rose his eyebrows, slinging the satchel over his other shoulder.

"But, I think it's about time that you go."

He looked down at her in a mild daze, before checking his distracted features behind a hand. Jade stopped outside the door, smiling up into his face.

"Oh- Oh yeah, yeah, I gotta go." Dave said, drumming his fingers across his chin. "I've got my brother; he's probably a little bit worried about me, I guess. And then there's my brother from _another_ mother, someone's gotta have told him about the fight by now..."

Jade extended an arm towards the door, stuck with no other words to offer to her retreating guest. Even still, Dave stood before the door, staring down at her.

"I kinda thought you were gonna keep me here, forcing me to make shitty biscuits for all eternity." Dave admitted, before turning to look out of the bakery's blue-glass windows.

"Just get _out_, already!" Jade jokingly demanded, shoving a thumb towards the door. Dave snickered, pushing back his sunglasses.

"Thanks for the food, Harley Girl." Dave said through his smirk, before resting a warm palm on top of Jade's hair. The wild strands of coal almost hid his pale hand from view, and she looked up at him in a surprised fulfillment.

"Try not to get your butt handed to you next time, okay?" She returned, and Dave gave her head two more pats in means of response.

"Welp, see you around." He mumbled, pulling back his wrist.

"It was nice meeting you." She responded, albeit a little uncomfortably. "And do yourself a favor, and find yourself some _new_ friends, okay?"

He left the bakery smiling, shutting the door neatly behind his frame.


End file.
